The American elections have not disregarded the Indianvoters with a tough competition among the parties to woo them.
Both the parties, the Democrats and the Republics haveissued ads in Indian languages like Gujarati and Marathi. In addition, manypromises have been made on H1B visas, a darling of many individuals includingthe skilled Indians who aspire to move to America.
The Indian voters have made it clear to the contestants thatviews on India-specific issues like Kashmir, Citizenship Act, and others willmatter.
The community is about 41.61 lakh strong.
The survey was conducted by Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, Johns Hopkins University, and the University ofPennsylvania.
In addition to the overtures of friendship between DonaldTrump and Narendra Modi, the other factor is the Democrats’ Kamala Harris asthe choice for vice-presidential candidate. Her Indian-origin is expected toappeal to the Indian community.
Milan Vaishnav, lead researcher and Senior Fellow, SouthProgram at Carnegie noted, “While Republicans are more bullish on Modi, it isworth pointing out that Democrats still largely view him favorably. The simplenotion that Trump supporters are Modi supporters and Modi opponents are Trumpopponents does not find support”.
If history is analyzed, the Indian Americans have beenchoosing the Democratic Party. For example, about 93% voted for Barack Obama in2008. Though, the Democrats have been losing the support ever since.
The scenario is that those who prefer Trump like Modi also.Those who dislike Trump are divided on their preference to Modi.
Vaishnav notes that few could have imagined the importancebeing given to the Indian American votes as is being given this time, and goesahead to question the significance of Modi on the US election results.
The survey was conducted on a representative sample of 1,200Indian Americans in September.
From religions’ point-of-view, 22% of Hindus, 45% ofChristians, and 10% of Muslims prefer Donald Trump.
It is worth noting that there is a topic on which all votersagree and that is university admissions. About half of both groups oppose affirmativeaction in higher education.